What Did Joe Biden Do Today?
March 7 Recap
In his State of the Union Address, President Biden opened by drawing a parallel to a moment in history when President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the nation in 1941, highlighting the unprecedented challenges of their times. The President emphasized that, like in Roosevelt's era, the present moment is not ordinary, with democracy and freedom under assault both domestically and internationally.
He pointed out the external threat from Russia, particularly Putin's aggression towards Ukraine, and underscored the importance of supporting Ukraine to prevent further escalation. Domestically, he addressed the assault on democracy, referencing the January 6 insurrection as a dire threat since the Civil War, and called for unity to defend democracy.
President Biden highlighted the issue of reproductive rights, affected by the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which led to restrictions on IVF treatments and abortion access. He urged Congress to act to protect reproductive and voting rights and to address gun violence, climate change, and economic fairness.
Economically, President Biden touted his administration's achievements in job creation, infrastructure investment, healthcare expansion, and efforts to lower prescription drug costs. He proposed further measures to improve economic equity and reduce the deficit while ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.
Regarding foreign policy, The President affirmed the U.S.' commitment to NATO and opposing Russian aggression. He discussed the need for comprehensive immigration reform and criticized policies that demonize immigrants. He also reaffirmed America’s commitment toward a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and negotiating a release of the hostages. He pledged more humanitarian aid to the Palestinians affected by the violence.
President Biden reiterated his optimism for America's future, emphasizing the importance of democracy, equality, and unity in facing the nation's challenges. He called for action to build a future that upholds these values for all Americans.
While Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, adorned in attire supporting Trump, persistently raised her voice at Biden, the president displayed a white button given to him earlier by the Georgia Republican, inscribed with Laken Riley's name. It is reported that the nursing student from Georgia, Laken Riley, fell victim to a Venezuelan individual who had illegally entered the U.S. in September 2022.
"Laken Riley," Biden articulated, referring to her as "an innocent young woman tragically lost to an illegal act." He extended his sympathies to her family, conveying that his thoughts were with them during this difficult time.
The address was a recapitulation of Biden's first-term achievements and a strategic move to shift focus from concerns about his age to his policy successes and plans for the future. By tackling a wide range of issues, from domestic policies to international conflicts, Biden aimed to solidify his stance on key matters and rally support for his administration's goals, especially in light of the upcoming election and potential challenges from the Republican side.
Additional Source: Yahoo! News
The White House released a fact sheet outlining several actions President Biden's administration took to lower costs for families and combat corporate practices that negatively affect consumers. Here's a summary of the key points:
Lowering Consumer Costs: Amidst price surges due to supply chain disruptions and external factors like energy and food price shocks, the Biden administration has worked to normalize supply chains and reduce inflation significantly. They highlight a decrease in the costs of essential items over the past year.
Addressing Corporate Practices: The administration is taking measures against corporations that maintain high prices despite decreased input costs and normalized supply chains. Efforts include battling junk fees, price gouging, "shrinkflation," and ensuring prescription drugs, including insulin, are more affordable.
Crackdown on Unfair Pricing: Launching a Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing, co-chaired by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, to end illegal corporate behaviors that inflate prices.
Elimination of Junk Fees: Initiatives to save Americans over $20 billion annually by combating hidden fees across various sectors, including banking, travel, and healthcare, reducing banking industry junk fees by nearly two-thirds.
Consumer Protection: Actions against deceptive practices in credit cards, shrinking product sizes without reducing prices ("shrinkflation"), and exploitative practices by pharmaceutical middlemen.
Promoting Competition: Efforts to make healthcare more competitive and address anti-competitive acquisitions that raise costs.
Transparent Pricing: Working with private sector companies to ensure consumers face no hidden fees and know the full price upfront in various sectors.
Educational Costs and Student Debt: Proposals to eliminate harmful fees in higher education and launch the SAVE plan for more affordable loan repayments. Nearly $138 billion in student debt has been forgiven for almost 3.9 million Americans, with ongoing efforts to provide further relief despite challenges from the Supreme Court.
The administration criticizes Congressional Republicans for lacking a plan to reduce costs and accuses them of defending practices that disadvantage consumers while attempting to defund federal consumer protection and antitrust enforcement agencies.
The White House outlined President Biden's fiscal and tax policy initiatives to create a more equitable tax system, reduce deficits, and promote investment within the United States. Key elements of President Biden's plan include:
Implementing tax cuts for working families and children, fostering investments in America, and significantly reducing the national deficit through measures like a new billionaire minimum tax and tighter regulations on multinational corporations that shift jobs and profits overseas.
Enacting legislation to ensure fairness in the tax code, such as a 15% corporate minimum tax to prevent billion-dollar companies from paying zero federal income taxes, and providing the IRS with resources to target wealthy tax evaders.
Opposing Republican proposals that aim to make permanent the tax cuts introduced by President Trump benefit the wealthy and big corporations, adding trillions to the national debt without proposing any offsets through increased taxes on the wealthy or large corporations.
Raising the corporate tax rate to 28% and ensuring that large corporations pay at least a 21% tax on their income, reversing the tax cuts granted to corporations in 2017 by Republicans.
Cracking down on tax avoidance by multinational corporations and Big Pharma, proposing a global minimum tax rate of 21%, and eliminating tax breaks for excessive executive compensation and stock buybacks.
Proposing a 25% minimum tax on billionaires and reforms to make wealthy individuals contribute more to Medicare would safeguard the IRS's ability to pursue wealthy tax cheats.
Advocating for tax cuts for middle- and low-income Americans through measures like the expanded Child Tax Credit, enhancements to the Earned Income Tax Credit, and permanent reductions in health insurance premiums.
Criticizing Republican tax plans that aim to permanently extend Trump-era tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations would add over $3 trillion to the national deficit over the next decade without addressing fairness or the national debt.
President Biden's proposals represent a comprehensive approach to tax reform, focusing on fairness, investment in American families and infrastructure, and fiscal responsibility. This contrasts sharply with Republican priorities that, according to the administration, favor the wealthy and large corporations at the expense of national debt and equity.
The White House announced the guest list for First Lady Jill Biden's viewing box for President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union Address, showcasing individuals representing significant issues or themes in the President's speech or embodying the Biden-Harris Administration's policies. These guests, from various backgrounds, have stories touching on reproductive rights, healthcare, gun violence prevention, worker's rights, civil rights, education, entrepreneurship, NATO expansion, tribal leadership, naval excellence, substance use prevention, wildfire heroism, women's health advocacy, and military family support.
Notably, the list includes individuals like Latorya Beasley, affected by reproductive rights legislation; Kris Blackley, an oncology nurse improving patient outcomes; Jazmin Cazares, a gun violence prevention advocate; Shawn Fain, UAW President highlighting labor success; and Bettie Mae Fikes, a civil rights advocate. Additionally, it features Steven Hadfield, who benefits from Medicare drug price negotiation; Mayor Garnett L. Johnson, who leads workforce development; and Kameryn Pupunu, a hero in the Lahaina wildfires, among others. This diverse group symbolizes various Administration efforts, from healthcare and labor rights to civil rights, military support, and environmental actions.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced ongoing efforts to safeguard reproductive rights nearly two years after the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. This decision has resulted in numerous states imposing stringent abortion bans, endangering women's health and limiting access to reproductive healthcare, including fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Key points include personal stories of individuals impacted by these restrictions, such as Kate Cox, a Texas mother who had to travel out-of-state for an abortion, and Latorya Beasley, whose IVF treatment was halted due to Alabama's legal challenges.
The Administration criticizes the Republican agenda for attempting to nationalize these extreme restrictions and outlines its actions to counteract these measures. These actions include:
Defending access to abortion and medication abortion, specifically safeguarding the availability of mifepristone.
Collaborating with state leaders to protect abortion access and reproductive healthcare.
Providing reproductive health care for veterans and service members.
Ensuring access to emergency medical care, emphasizing the federal law requirements under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).
Supporting the right to travel for reproductive healthcare.
Enhancing access to affordable contraception, including actions to cover a broader range of FDA-approved contraceptives without cost and promoting over-the-counter options.
Protecting the privacy of patients and healthcare providers, including proposals to strengthen HIPAA rules to safeguard reproductive health information.
Ensuring access to accurate information and legal resources, including creating dedicated websites for reproductive rights and convening lawyers to defend these rights.
The fact sheet underscores the Administration's commitment to restoring Roe v. Wade's protections, maintaining reproductive freedom, and resisting efforts to undermine these fundamental rights through legislative, judicial, and executive actions.
A teleconference held by National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard and other senior administration officials previewed President Biden's upcoming State of the Union address and economic agenda. The key points highlighted in the call were as follows:
President Biden plans to discuss his administration's significant achievements and outline his future vision, focusing on building the economy from the middle out and bottom-up rather than from the top down.
The administration aims to address lowering costs and creating a fairer tax system for Americans.
Since President Biden took office, there has been a significant economic recovery, with nearly 15 million jobs added, a stable unemployment rate below 4% for two years, and substantial investments in infrastructure and clean energy.
Efforts to lower prescription drug costs and energy prices and eliminate junk fees to save Americans over $20 billion a year.
Proposals to make the tax code fairer, including reversing the corporate rate cut from the 2017 tax law, raising the corporate minimum tax rate to 21%, and implementing new measures to prevent corporations from claiming tax deductions for executive compensation above $1 million.
The President's budget plan aims to reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over ten years, contrasting with Republican plans that would reportedly increase the debt by $3 trillion.
Specific policies to lower housing costs and address unfinished components of the President's economic agenda, such as childcare and education costs, will also be highlighted.
The call emphasized President Biden's commitment to fighting for working families and ensuring economic recovery benefits everyone, not just the wealthy and big corporations. The details provided were intended to set the stage for the President's address to reinforce his economic priorities and legislative achievements.
The White House released a fact sheet outlining President Biden's comprehensive plan to reduce housing costs for working families, highlighting the challenges of high housing prices and limited availability that have persisted for over a decade. Key components of the plan include:
Building and Preserving Homes: The plan calls for constructing and renovating over 2 million homes to address the housing shortage, aiming to reduce rents and make homeownership more affordable.
Tax Credits and Assistance: Proposals include a $10,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and those selling starter homes, a mortgage relief credit offering $5,000 per year for two years to aid first-time homebuyers, and up to $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-generation homebuyers.
Reducing Closing Costs: Initiatives to lower the closing costs associated with buying a home or refinancing a mortgage include policy approvals by the Federal Housing Finance Agency and efforts by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to address anticompetitive closing costs.
Incentives for Building More Housing: The plan includes expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to build or preserve affordable rental units and introducing a new Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit for constructing or renovating affordable homes for homeownership. A new $20 billion grant fund is proposed to support housing construction and lower rents and homebuying costs.
Support for Affordable Housing Development: The plan proposes increasing contributions from Federal Home Loan Banks to the Affordable Housing Program, aiming to raise an additional $3.79 billion for affordable housing over the next decade.
Actions to Lower Costs for Renters: Stopping rent gouging by corporate landlords, cracking down on rental "junk fees," and expanding housing choice vouchers to support low-income families, veterans, and youth aging out of foster care.
President Biden's plan seeks to make housing more affordable and accessible for working families by addressing the supply gap, providing financial assistance, and taking measures against unfair practices in the housing market.
President Biden expressed his honor in welcoming Sweden as the 32nd Ally of NATO, highlighting the strengthening of transatlantic security with Sweden's addition to the Alliance. He referenced President Truman's historical statement about NATO creating a shield against aggression, emphasizing that this shield is stronger than ever.
The President remarked on Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine, stating that contrary to weakening Europe or dividing NATO, it led to Sweden and Finland, with their highly capable militaries, applying for full NATO membership. Finland's membership was ratified before the summit in Vilnius, and now, with Sweden's inclusion, NATO is described as more united, determined, and dynamic.
President Biden underscored that shared democratic values and the commitment to stand up for them are central to NATO's strength and appeal, asserting that the Alliance, with Sweden as its newest member, will continue championing freedom and democracy. He also mentioned looking forward to hosting all 32 Allies for the 75th Anniversary NATO Summit in Washington, D.C.
A background press call conducted by the National Security Council via teleconference detailed the United States plans to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza ahead of the State of the Union address. Senior administration officials outlined efforts to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, emphasizing the United States' commitment to ensuring the delivery of essential supplies like food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters to the region. This initiative includes establishing a new port in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast, facilitated by an emergency mission led by the U.S. military. This port aims to allow large ships to deliver aid directly to Gaza, representing a significant step in improving the humanitarian situation.
The administration highlighted President Biden's active role in securing humanitarian access to Gaza since the conflict began, including personal diplomacy with Israel and Egypt to open border crossings for aid delivery. The United States, as the largest provider of aid to Gaza since October 7th, has contributed over $180 million in assistance.
In addition to the port initiative, the U.S. has carried out airdrops and is building a coalition to support aid delivery by land, air, and sea. The effort involves coordination with international partners and the Israeli government to address logistical and security challenges. The officials also stressed the urgency of reaching a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, which would facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid. They underscored ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire agreement, conditional on Hamas releasing vulnerable hostages.
Overall, the call emphasized the multifaceted approach the U.S. is taking to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza through direct aid, diplomatic efforts to secure more access points for aid delivery, and seeking a ceasefire to ensure the safe distribution of assistance within Gaza.
The White House has officially announced the Presidential Trade and Investment Mission delegation to the Philippines, scheduled for March 11-12, 2024. The delegation, led by The Honorable Gina Raimondo, Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce, comprises industry leaders from various sectors, including technology, energy, finance, infrastructure, transportation, and sustainability. Notable delegates include executives from Google Asia Pacific, Black & Veatch Corp., Visa Inc., EchoStar/DISH, United Airlines, UPS, Boston Consulting Group, KKR, Capital One Philippines, U.S.-ASEAN Business Council, Bechtel, Apl.de.Ap Foundation International, FedEx, Mastercard, Microsoft Corp., and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. This mission aims to strengthen trade and investment ties between the United States and the Philippines, leveraging the expertise and influence of these top business leaders to foster economic growth and innovation in both countries.
State of the Union Address, 2024
